


On Easing Tension

by mnemosyne23



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF, Lost RPF
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gen, Matchmaking, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-02-17
Updated: 2006-02-17
Packaged: 2018-01-12 21:15:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1200961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mnemosyne23/pseuds/mnemosyne23
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elijah's been so busy lately, he's forgotten how to have fun.  Maggie helps him out, with a little help from a hapless Dom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Easing Tension

"You have great eyes."

That's always how the conversation starts. Elijah's used to the routine. She'll tell him that he has nice eyes, and he'll say yeah, and they're real, too. She'll giggle, then ask him if he's the guy from that movie. You know, the one with the magical people? _"Lord of the Rings,"_ he'll say with a nod. _"Yeah, that's me."_

_"No, not that one. The one about the kid with the scar."_

_"Harry Potter."_

_"Yeah! That one. Are you in that?"_

_"No."_

_"Oh."_

He wonders sometimes if they realize that lusting after Harry Potter is jailbait.

This girl is still staring at him, and Elijah smiles back, trying to be polite. Her name's Maggie -- Dom introduced them earlier, right before he went off to do something idiotic and drunken with Billy involving a bottle of Jager and a Slip N Slide. He can still hear them whooping and hollering in the backyard of Dom's roomy bungalow as they're cheered on by the soused crowd. Elijah doesn't remember why Dom's having this party -- a wrap party for the season maybe? -- but he knows there's a lot of people here, which means Dom's making plenty of friends. That makes him ridiculously happy for some reason. For a good year after _Rings_ wrapped, Dom had been a lonely husk of his former self. It does Elijah's heart good to know his friend is faring so well in this new environment. And if the looks passing between him and that pretty Aussie co-star of his mean anything, he's doing a damn sight better than Elijah himself in the love department at the moment.

"You were Frodo, right?" Maggie asks, and Elijah's so surprised she knows his character's name, he almost chokes on his beer.

"Yeah," he says, putting the bottle on the coffee table out of harm's way and sitting back. "You've seen _Lord of the Rings?_ "

"Sure!" She smiles, and Elijah thinks she's got to be one of the prettiest girls he's ever met. Just really, really gorgeous. "I mean, when I heard Dom was going to be working on the show, I figured I'd better find out what all the fuss was about, right? So I rented them. They're LONG."

He laughs. "You should have been there to film them," he tells her, relaxing back against Dom's sofa cushions. Normally he'd be outside partying with everyone else, but the jet lag's hit him pretty hard and he doesn't feel like getting off the couch.

"I can imagine." Maggie snuggles up in a ball next to him, resting her head on the back of the couch. "It gets a little isolated filming _Lost_. You sort of forget the rest of the world exists until you have to buy tampons and a bike lock and realize you don't know where the nearest Wal-Mart is."

Elijah barks out a laugh at the ceiling, draping his arms lazily over his stomach. "I can honestly say I've never thought about it like that," he muses, glancing her way, eyebrows raised in amusement.

Maggie grins at him, and Elijah finds himself wondering why she's hanging out with him when everyone else is outside enjoying the Hawaiian sun and urging Dom to _Chug, chug, chug, SLIDE!_ "How long are you in town?" she asks, propping her head on her hand and watching him, her eyes holding his gaze.

"Just a week," he says, running a tired hand over his face and giving her a weak smile. "Then it's back to L.A. I've got some scripts waiting for me on my bedside table. In all rights I should have brought them with me to read on the plane ride here, but I wanted to leave work behind for a while."

"I bet." Her strappy sandals are half dangling off her feet and she toes them off the rest of the way, tucking her knees up under her chin and wrapping her arms around her legs. "You must be insanely busy."

"It's a bit hectic, yeah."

Maggie grins suddenly. "Hey, you wanna play a prank?"

That is the absolute LAST thing he was expecting her to say. "On who?" he asks, intrigued.

"Dom of course."

Any chance he gets to take the piss out of Dom is one to be treasured. "Why?" he asks, sitting up a little straighter.

"Because he's a good sport, and because it'll help you relax. Besides, it's fun to play mind games with drunk people."

Elijah snickers, feeling his jet lag melting away. He should be intimidated by this gorgeous young woman with the supermodel body, but he's not. He thinks it's her smile. She smiles like she's known him forever. "Sure." He sits forward. "What've you got in mind?"

Maggie cackles, rubbing her hands together eagerly. "You get that end of the coffee table, I'll get this one."

"What're we doing?" Elijah asks as they stand up and Maggie quickly moves Dom's various oddments off the coffee table.

"God, he lives like a pig," she remarks, blowing a billowing cloud of dust off the surface of the table. "Just a little redecorating," she answers Elijah's question, eyes twinkling as she takes hold of her end of the table. "When I say go, you turn left. Ready? One, two, three, GO."

 

\-----------------------------------------

 

Dom needs to piss.

He's had to piss for half an hour, but what with one thing and another, Billy challenging him to another race down the Slip N Slide, and Emilie's determined refusal to allow him to pee in the bushes, he's been holding it in.

"'Snot natural," he slurs, stumbling towards the sliding back door while everyone else continues to carouse behind him. "Denyin' a man the shcance ta piss in his own backyard. I pay taxshes, don't I?" He pauses, furrowing his brow. "'Ang on… do I? I'm British…" He doesn't remember ever filing a 1040 form, but then, he can barely remember his shoe size at the moment, so that's not exactly shocking.

Whatever. Peeing. That's really all he cares about right now. Shrugging off his fiscal responsibility, he wanders up to the backdoor and toys around with the latch until he can get his fingers to open it. "Shtupid… fooking bolt… Open, fer chrissakes… Kay."

He manages to maneuver his body through the door, although his feet seem to want to go in ten different directions at once. "SETTLE DOWN!" he shouts at them, and they come to a stop suddenly. "Good."

He stares at them.

"Ya can move now."

They start to slither forward again, feeling out the floor like a tightrope walker. Dom watches warily for a second, until he's convinced they've picked a direction. Then, with a firm nod, he lets himself take a step.

And trips over his sofa.

 _Funny_ , he thinks as he pitches headfirst over the back of the couch and ends up face first in the cushions. _Don't remember leaving this here_.

For a few seconds he stays totally still, trying to figure out which way is up, which way is down, and which way is ass over head. He's feeling pretty familiar with that last one at the moment.

The sound of a throat being cleared is what finally prompts him to move. Flopping his head over onto the opposite cheek, he finds himself staring at a pair of bare feminine feet. He follows them up, and yep, there're the ankles, and oh, hey, legs, too. A nice pair of knees, and-

"Hello, Dom," Maggie says, smiling tolerantly.

"Um… Hey," he mumbles, mouth mashed sideways by the couch cushions. "'Sup?"

"Your ass for one."

"Yeah."

"What are you doing in my house, Dom?"

"Look, I jus' wanted ta use the-- wha'?"

"My house, Dom. You're in it. Why?"

He frowns. Hang on… He's in… MAGGIE'S house? "What'm I doin' in yer houshe, Mags?" he asks, genuinely confused.

"That's a very good question, Dom," she agrees. "And much as I'd really love to work through that with you, as you might be able to see , I have company. So, if we could figure this out later…?" She lets the suggestion dangle.

Dom's eyes shift to the side, and hey, what do you know, the reason he's looking at Maggie's feet is because she's sitting on someone's lap.

He squints. " _'Lij_?"

Elijah smiles at him. "Hello."

Dom's mind whirls. Somehow, he's ended up in the Twilight Zone. Outside he was in his own backyard. But somewhere between the backyard and the inside of the house, he wandered through some interdimensional vortex and ended up in a parallel universe where his co-stars are inexplicably fucking.

"I'ma…I'ma…I'ma…" He pushes up onto his hands and slides back off the couch, standing unsteadily on his feet. "I'ma gonna go outside again."

"That sounds good," Maggie agrees.

"Shorry I'm in your houshe, Mags."

"That's okay, Dom."

He sways for a minute, trying to remember if there was any kind of sparkly electrical field when he came through the door.

"Dom?"

"Hmm?"

"You're still here."

"Oh. Yeah."

Turning on his heel, he stumbles back to the door. Or rather, he stumbles towards the blurry patch of wall that looks like sunlight. He can hear the murmur of voices outside and moves toward them, hands extended.

"Fook it, I'm pisshin in the bushes," he mutters, and falls off the edge of the patio.

 

 

\------------------------------------------

 

Maggie can't stop laughing. "Oh my God, did you see his face!" she squeals, holding her stomach as she laughs hysterically. "He bought it! He totally bought it!"

Elijah's grinning like an idiot, but not because of Dom's drunken stupor. It's hard NOT to grin like an idiot when you have a beautiful young woman squirming in your lap, her silky blonde hair falling over your shoulder, excited breaths ghosting across your neck. He finds his arm tightening ever so slightly around the curve of her lower back, while his other hand rubs her knee.

Eventually her laughter subsides a bit and she rests her cheek on his shoulder, eyes shining as she continues to giggle in short, hiccupping bursts. "Do you feel better now?" she asks, smiling and snuggling a little closer.

"Much," he tells her, nodding. "I've been so busy lately, I forgot what it's like to do something just for the hell of it."

Her smile softens, and for a minute they just watch each other. Elijah's hand rubs her knee rhythmically as her fingers comb through the hair at the nape of his neck.

"You really do have nice eyes," she murmurs eventually.

He chuckles. "So I've been told."

"Not just because they're big and blue, though."

"Oh? Why else?"

Maggie's smile widens a bit, and she moves forward to place a soft kiss on the side of his neck. Elijah can feel himself blushing as she sits back again.

"Because I've been talking to you for over an hour, and you haven't looked at my chest once," she says quietly, eyes tender. "I think you're the only guy I've ever talked to who actually looks at ME."

Now he's DEFINITELY blushing. He can feel the blood burning in his ears. "With a smile like yours, there's not much reason to look anywhere else," he says, knowing it sounds completely corny but also knowing it's the God given truth.

As if on cue, her smile breaks out like sunrise. "You're not bad yourself, Dimples," she teases gently, fingers trailing over his cheek. Elijah chuckles and takes her hand, pressing a kiss to her palm.

"We should move the furniture back," he says as he lets her hand go.

She cups his cheek. "Not yet."

"Why not?"

Maggie's smile changes in a heartbeat, going from playful to devious. "Because nobody can see us this way." She sits up again, nuzzling his nose. "And I still think you're a bit tense."

 

**THE END**


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